Category Archives: Human Service Professionals

Dear Colleagues,
As you plan your travels for the upcoming AERA meeting in Toronto, please also make note of the following Invited Panel Session (scheduled for Sunday morning, April 7) which includes presentations from three distinguished colleagues:

Invited Speaker Session: Frontiers in the Assessment of Entrustment and Competence across the Professions

Session Date: Sunday morning, April 7, 2019 (exact time/location to be released this Friday, 2/15)

Invited Speakers:

Olle ten Cate (Utrecht University): “Valuing what trainees are ready to do, rather than what they have done: entrustment as assessment”

Trudie Roberts (University of Leeds):“Machines rush in where humans fear to tread: the place of AI in assessment and entrustment”

Invited Session Overview: Concepts of entrustment and competence have resonated across the professions, with innovative and emerging methods to assess trainees. Recent advances in the literature have provided insights on the designs and frameworks to assess learners, including approaches that are beyond traditional forms of assessment. Yet, there are still challenges that remain as we struggle to refine assessments and understand how entrustment and competence can be operationalized and measured. This session will provide insights across the professions on current trends in the field, challenges, and frontier ideas, as they relate to entrustment and competence.

Olle ten Cate: “Valuing what trainees are ready to do, rather than what they have done: entrustment as assessment”

Graduating trainees in the health professions means entrusting them with critical activities of the profession. An assessment system with that goal in mind should not be limited to observing and judging what can be seen, and has been seen, but should anticipate that learners will perform activities that have not been observed and even may have never been encountered. Trust and entrustment includes the willingness of educators and educational programs to accept risks when making entrustment decisions and consequently urge them to look into a learner’s capability to cope with unfamiliar challenges

Assessment decisions have historically relied nearly exclusively on numeric scores and quantitative data. Narrative, qualitative assessment comments have often been ignored, despite offering a richer, more nuanced perspective on learners’ performance. These comments also shed light on how supervisors conceptualize feedback, performance and competence. How can we optimize the use of qualitative data when making entrustment decisions and other judgments about our learners?

Trudie Roberts: “Machines rush in where humans fear to tread: the place of AI in assessment and entrustment”

The fourth industrial revolution will mean major changes to the practice of many professions. In surgery the use of robots or co-bots is likely to be an increasing feature. Improved computing power will mean that in depth performance analytics will be available on all doctors. The machine will increasingly be part of the healthcare team. How much say then could a computer algorithm or a robot have on assessing a doctor’s competence and will trainees ever need a robot’s entrustment to progress.

The great migration to this year’s American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting in Vancouver is about to begin. And this is as good a reason as any to highlight some resources of interest to those who are interested in educating (future or practicing) professionals. AERA Division I (Education in the Professions) will sponsor a series of scientific paper presentations, symposia and discussions this year focusing primarily on research on the education of professionals in a variety of fields (law, healthcare, engineering, teaching, social work, military, ministry…). The Division I newsletter, Professionals Education Research Quarterly (PERQ), is available online.

Here is how Division I describes itself:

The purpose of this Division is to further educational research, development, and evaluation in the professions by supporting scholarly presentations and publications; providing opportunities for professional growth and recognition; enhancing communication, outreach, and networking among members; and improving the capacity of the educational research profession to inform practice and policy as it relates to education in the professions.

There are several other AERA Divisions and Special Interest Groups (SIGs) of potential interest to people interested in professional studies. Right now, the best route to this information is through the main AERA home page (then to “about AERA” — “member constituents” — “Divisions“). For example, Divisions J and K focus on Postsecondary Education and Teaching and Teacher Education, respectively.

For all those heading to Vancouver — have a safe journey! For those who won’t be attending this year — a good chance to catch up on reading about the professions and professional life. — EdProf

The Pedagodfathers: Lords of Education is a remarkable text — complex, multilayered and imaginative. It captures the wonderful world of educational discourse through the voice of an “old hand” sharing his thoughts and observations with a young educator at the beginning of his career. The book presents many keen insights and “pearls of wisdom.” In the words below, the old hand (mentor) offers his best and final advice: to treasure each moment, choose fresh beginnings and share the wine of life with others. In the passage below, we are told to expect no more of ourselves than this.

“Eliot understood hell better than Sartre. Not that Sartre was completely wrong. He wasn’t. He was even right as far as he went. Hell is, at times, others. The pedagodfathers certainly torture all of us…But hell, as Eliot so beautifully conveys the ugly truth, is also oneself — our drives and choices, their consequences; our fears, failures, pretensions, delusions; our extended, unending solitude; our loss of dignity and self; and our imprisonment as strangers. He offers an exit, however, unlike Sartre: fresh beginning, each moment of the day if necessary. Fresh beginnings, however, are almost over for some of us; but, there are plenty left for people like you and Sophia. I hope you’ll take advantage of them. We need educators and attorneys, even administrators, who choose to enjoy a good life as they seek to build, protect and extend a just, free, good and caring society. Our hope — individually, professionally, institutionally — rests in each person’s treasuring each moment, choosing fresh beginnings and sharing the wine of life with others. No one can ask more from us, and we dare not expect more of ourselves” (Simpson, 1994, p. 157).

It is interesting to juxtapose this advice with the notion expressed earlier in this book about the nature of success (See “On Doing What One Ought to Do“). Captives of our culture, we (educators, human service professionals) are advised to live principled lives as well as good lives, while dedicating ourselves to creating and preserving “a just, good, free, and caring society.” Two moral imperatives — to do what one ought (thereby redefining our conceptions of success), and to enjoy oneself while doing so! This reminds me of Martha Wolfenstein’s fun morality construct — the mid-20th century notion that parenting should be fun and enjoyable, and if we find it otherwise, there must be a problem! — EdProf